AHA-3940/3940W/3940U/3940UW Common Questions and Answers Document #39155 Q: Why wouldn't the Host Adapter be recognized and no BIOS banner be displayed when installing the AHA-3940? A: The computer must be PCI REV. 2.0 Compliant and motherboard BIOS must support PCI-to-PCI Bridges (PPB). Document #21130 on the Interactive Fax or BRDGCOMP.TXT on the BBS has a listing of systems which have been tested to work with AHA-3940/3940W. We recommend, however, confirming with the manufacturer of the Motherboard that it has PPB support. For more information on PCI bridge chipset issues, consult Document #21140 on the Interactive Fax. Q: My system is listed as being PCI 2.0 Compliant, yet the Host Adapter is still not recognized or it hangs at the BIOS banner. A: Even though the hardware support for PCI-to-PCI Bridge is present, the BIOS version may not be supported. Contact the motherboard manufacturer for a BIOS upgrade. Q: The BIOS has been updated, yet the Host Adapter is still not recognized. A: Either the board is not in a bus mastering slot or the PCI slot is not enabled for bus mastering. Check your motherboard manual to find out if the slot is bus mastering, or how to enable bus mastering for that slot. It may be a jumper setting on the motherboard or an option in the CMOS setup. Q: On boot-up I get the error message "Host Adapter Configuration Error." A: In CMOS setup, enable an IRQ for the PCI slot. Alternatively, you can mark one of the IRQs as free or available. Be aware that there may be an IRQ conflict with a built-in controller on the motherboard. For CMOS settings, refer to your PC user's manual. Q: My PCI video card installed with my AHA-3940 shows no video or causes intermittent hangs during boot. A: Multiple PCI cards in a system may cause a resource conflict. There are no known compatibility issues with any PCI video card. Check the PCI slot configuration in the CMOS setup for possible conflicts. Q: EZ-SCSI installation hangs on installing the AIC-7870.DLL driver. A: Update to EZ-SCSI version 3.11 or later. Q: EZ-SCSI 3.x fails to recognize the Host Adapter when running the install program. A: To install drivers, insert disk 2 into your floppy drive and type DOSINST /PCI from that drive. This should allow EZ- SCSI to find the PCI Host Adapter. Then if necessary, run the EZ-SCSI installation from Windows 3.x by running SETUP NOSCAN from the program manager. Once this is done, EZ-SCSI drivers should be completely installed to your hard drive. Manually edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat to load the appropriate drivers if necessary. Q: When loading ASPI8DOS.SYS the system hangs, and then displays the error message: "Read BIOS Parameter Failed." A: Update ASPI8DOS.SYS manager to version 1.10 (EZ-SCSI 3.03) or later. Q: Can I use a SCSI 2 drive with the AHA-3940W although it does not have any SCSI 2 connector? A: Adaptec has 68 pin to 50 pin internal and external adapters available through sales which may be used to install SCSI 2 devices. The external adapter changes the entire external bus to 8-bit SCSI and must only be connected to the external port of the host adapter. No external wide devices should be daisy chained if this adapter is used. The internal adapter, however, does not convert the entire internal bus to 8 bit SCSI. This is used to convert one connector on a 68pin internal ribbon cable to 50 pin. The internal connector must only be used for the middle connectors. No SCSI 2 device may be placed at the end of the daisy chain and a wide terminator or wide device is required at the end of the chain to properly terminate the bus. Q: Can I use the external connector as channel A? A: The external connector is hardwired for channel A only. Q: How can I boot from channel B? A: The AHA-3940 will boot from channel B as long as no hard drive is connected to channel A. If a hard drive is connected to channel A and the BIOS version is 1.12, then the host adapter can be configured to boot from channel B. To configure the host adapter, go to the Device Configuration Table in SCSISelect setup and change "Include in BIOS scan" option to "no." This option was eliminated from BIOS version 1.13 which would not allow booting from channel B if a hard drive is connected to channel A. This problem has been addressed and the solution is to upgrade the BIOS version to v1.14. Q: I am able to access channel A, but unable to access channel B. A: This is a system resource allocation problem. A possible work around solution is as follows, but it is recommend that the customer contact the system manufacturer for an BIOS upgrade. The solution is to leave the slot next to the AHA- 3940W adapter vacant and also assign an IRQ to that particular slot. For example, If an AHA-3940W is installed in slot 1, assign an IRQ to slot 1 and also assign an IRQ to slot 2. There are some systems that have PCI IRQ sharing which slots 1 and 2 had to be assigned the same IRQ. Note: The adjacent slot must remain vacant for this solution to work. Windows 95 Q: What are the steps to install an Adaptec host adapter into my PC? A: Step 1 Open the control panel. Step 2 Select "Add New Hardware". Step 3 Select "No" when the program asks if you want to automatically search for new hardware. Step 4 Select SCSI controllers Step 5 Select the Adaptec host adapter you want to install. Step 6 The install program will ask for the driver source if it not already on your PC system. Step 7 Accept the default system resource settings. Step 8 With the control panel still open select the System Icon. Step 9 From the System properties dialog box select the Device Manager tab. Step 10 Select SCSI controllers. Step 11 Select the controller you just installed. Step 12 Verify that the resource settings are the same as the card settings. Step 13 Shutdown the System. Step 14 Install the new host adapter, making sure the end devices are terminated, cable lengths are as short as possible and you are using high quality SCSI II compliant cables. Q: How do I install the driver for the AHA-3940 card? A: After the card has been installed, reboot the system back to the Windows 95 desktop screen. Windows 95 will detect the card automatically and ask for the Windows 95 CD disk from which to install the driver. If the Windows 95 could not detect the card, move the card to different PCI slot. Q: How do I upgrade to the new driver under Windows 95? A: 1. Highlight My Computer Icon and hold down ALT key and hit Enter. 2. Select Device Manager Tab and branch out SCSI Controller. 3. Double click on the Adaptec host adapter and select driver tab. 4. Then Click on Change driver Button and insert new driver diskette or 7800 manager set to install new driver. Q: Windows 95 found the card and installed the drive but the driver has yellow ! mark at the device list. A: Move the card to different PCI slots. If doesn't help, check the IRQs availability and PCI-to-PCI Bridge support on the system board. Windows NT Q: I'm running Windows NT and recently upgraded from a previous SCSI Host Adapter to an AHA-3940 PCI adapter and the 78xx.SYS driver. When I removed the old adapter from the system, I connected the hard drive to the AHA-3940 and re-booted. Now the system will not boot. What's wrong? A: It is possible that when the new driver was added to the NTBOOTDD.SYS, the old driver was also there, and was configured to be activated at BOOTUP time. The new driver must be set to start at BOOTUP. This can be done in the Device section of the Control Panel. The an old driver needs to be deleted from the NTBOOTDD.SYS if the card is no longer in the system. If the old card is still in the system but is not controlling the boot device, choose the Service section in the Control Panel and select the original driver to be started at SYSTEM time not BOOTUP. Q: I'm getting corrupted files mirroring drives using Windows NT Workstation or Server. A: The hard drives being used may have Write Cache enabled by default. File Corruption can occur when mirroring drives with this feature. CHKDSK can sometimes fix the problem temporarily, however upon reboot, file corruption usually starts again. Contact the hard drive manufacturer for instructions to disable Write Cache. Q: I cannot detect the Channel B of the AHA-3940/W card under Windows NT v4.0 Workstation or Server. A: Move the AHA-3940/W card to the very first PCI slots of the System board. Novell Q: If I have two cards installed, how do I determine which AHA-3940 is the primary card if I am duplexing under Novell? A: During boot-up, check the LED on the AHA-3940 cards to see which one illuminates first. Q: Where can I get the latest NetWare drivers for AHA-3940 and which driver should I load? A: The latest NetWare drivers can be downloaded from Adaptec's BBS and Internet sites (ftp.adaptec.com, www.adaptec.com). Drivers for NetWare 3.1x are in a file called NW31X.EXE and drivers for NetWare 4.X are in NW4X.EXE. These are self extracting files which contain the NetWare drivers for all of Adaptec's host adapters. The driver for the AHA-3940 is AIC7870.DSK. Q: NetWare only sees one channel after loading the driver and there is no problem in DOS. A: The drivers must be loaded for each channel individually. If both channels A and B are used, load the driver twice. Q: NetWare does not recognize the CD-ROM. What driver do I need to load? A: To be able to access a CD-ROM, load the following drivers: :Load AIC7870.DSK (ASPITRAN.DSK will autoload) :Load ASPICD.DSK :Load NPA312.NLM (for NetWare 3.12 only) :Load NWPA.NLM (for NetWare 4.xx only) :Load CDROM.NLM Adaptec BBS: (408) 945-7727 Adaptec Sales: (800) 442-7274 Adaptec Interactive Fax: (408) 957-7150 Adaptec Technical Support: (408) 934-7274. Last revised 03/06/97